“Writing is the closest thing we have to real magic. Writing is creating something out of nothing, is opening doors to other lands, writing gives you the power to shape your own world when the other hurts too much.”

Yellowface, by R.F. Kuang

Summary

Authors Juniper Hayward and Athena Liu were supposed to be twin rising stars. But Athena is a literary darling while June is a nobody. Who wants stories about basic white girls?, June thinks. So when June witnesses Athena’s death in a freak accident, she acts on impulse, stealing Athena’s just-finished masterpiece, an experimental novel about the unsung contributions of Chinese laborers during World War I.

So what if June edits Athena’s novel and sends it to her agent as her own work? So what if she lets her new publisher rebrand her as Juniper Song—complete with an ambiguously ethnic author photo? This piece of history deserve to be told, whoever the teller. That is what June believes, and The New York Times bestseller list agrees.

But June cannot escape Athena’s shadow, and emerging evidence threatens her stolen success. As she races to protect her secret she discovers exactly how far she will go to keep what she thinks she deserves.

With its totally immersive first-person voice, Yellowface grapples with questions of diversity, racism, and cultural appropriation, as well as the terrifying alienation of social media. R.F. Kuang’s novel is timely, razor-sharp, and eminently readable.

My Thoughts

This was my first contemporary read in a while, and by god was it worth it. It’s also the first audiobook I’ve ever listened to in full, a testament both to the narrator on Libby and R.F. Kuang’s entrancing writing. The novel is a satire of racial diversity in the publishing industry, as well as cancel culture and social media outrage. Through her writing, you can definitely see Kuang’s own experience in the publishing industry shine through.

The main character, Juniper Song Hayward, is quite frankly, very unlikeable. She is a white woman trying to make her way as an author, and outraged at the perceived “unfairness” of authors of color like Athena getting published, in her opinion, only for being diverse. She’s a hot mess, she’s ridiculous, she’s biased and desperate and bigoted but also very human. She will make readers uncomfortable, because they will alternate between hating her and pitying her, and at times, even understanding her. She craves attention, to be liked, to be famous and to make her mark on the world. She wants so badly to please the people around that she will do anything for them at times. She is unlikeable, yes, but not so unlikeable that you will want to stop reading. Her characterization and voice are incredibly strong, and Kuang’s use of first person POV really helps that aspect shine. She is really obviously racist in ways that are often slightly hilarious; she finds Chinese food odious, is scared to walk through Chinatown alone, comments on how good the English of Chinese people is. It is hard to write about these kinds of microaggressions from the POV of the white woman committing them, but Kuang does it. When she is publishing her book, she and her publishing team—three white women, the main editor a seemingly boss-feminist who has made racist remarks in the past and is the only female editor at her publishing company—are quick to rebrand her as Juniper Song using her middle name, instead of June Hayward like she used with her first book. They are quick to justify it by saying “it’s not fraud, we’re just suggesting the right credentials”. There is a hilarious moment in the middle when June is getting coopted by the right wing media as a victim of the left woke cancel-culture, and she asks: is it wrong of her to benefit? She is not actively feeding into it, she voted for Biden! That justification truly made me laugh.

Athena Liu is the other main character of the book. Despite dying early on, she haunts the narrative. Her relationship with June is a cornerstone of the book; their distance in life, the way they almost get closer in death. There is a perverseness to the way that June almost steals her life, steps into her shoes when she steals Athena’s manuscript, a certain longing to June’s envy of Athena. June is disdaining and disbelieving of Athena even when hanging out with her, finds her too perfect, yet longs to be her. The more you learn about Athena Liu, the more you realize that she was clearly not perfect, that people other than June had their problems with her. She was an industry darling for her novels relating to Chinese history—the prototypical, beautiful, talented, wealthy, and super-successful Asian-American author and influencer. She was also a leech in some ways; you learn that she had a tendency of talking to people and then stealing their stories, mining their trauma and turning them into her stories. Later in the novel, June is so haunted by what she has done that she feels as though Athena’s ghost is haunting her. She sees Athena at every corner, is terrified of her friend bearing down on her.

Kuang’s satirical commentary on diversity is pointed and well thought out. She notes that people are quick to point out flaws in representation if they find one, or turn on people in their own community. She uses social media as a vehicle to do so; the narrator of the book is deeply online, with specific references to blue checkmarks, jade vagina eggs, Obama, Biden, and more. It is very present at the time it is written, which I believe will make it harder to understand in fifty years; the same way we need to study the history of when Heart of Darkness or Huckleberry Finn were written in literature classes (not to compare the books themselves). At other times, the social media hate that June gets, the cancelling she endures, the impact on her mental health, are heavily informed by Kuang’s own experience with social media. It’s incredibly meta-textual, at times feeling like the author is breaking the fourth wall. Yet it also does a good exploration of the mental health impact on people who are cancelled, how scary it can feel when the entire internet is against you, how quick people are to dogpile based on limited information because that is what is popular. There are also good musings on suffering, and who has the right to profit off of said suffering. Athena Liu is a wealth, upper-class Chinese American who does not speak Chinese, who has not personally experienced the suffering she writes about. What gives her more of a right than a white author to tell these stories, June asks? This is again informed by Kuang’s own experiences as a well-off, well-educated Chinese American whose writing is heavily informed by Chinese history. Is it right, Kuang asks, to profit off of the trauma of color? She also explores the publishing industry quite well. The part that stood out to me was her reflection on the loss of collaboration, how a group of people that were once happy to crowd around library tables and talk together about their writing turn competitive and cagey. It made me sad as I listened; if I become a published author, will I lose my love for writing, the collaborative spirit I love, just like June Hayward?

This book is ultimately a must read. June’s anger, resentment, bitterness, and racism drip off the page, and Kuang’s darkly satirical take on real-world topics alternates between hilarious and heartbreaking. It is fast-paced, grim, and very informed about the ins and outs of the publishing industry. My only note to the author would be to trust her readers more. She seems worried that we don’t get the point, and ends up beating us over the head with it. The same moment, like June’s dislike of Chinese food, does not need to be repeated ten times over for us to understand the irony of her educating herself on Chinese history and stealing a novel about it, only to have no actual understanding or connection to the community. The ending is very fast and did not at all go the way I expected. I had no idea where it would go, was shocked when it ended, but as I sat with the ending, realized that it probably could not have ended any other way.

Review: ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ ⚫ ◐